Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 March 1896 — “Telling the Bees.” [ARTICLE]

“Telling the Bees.”

The curious custom of “telling the bees” is observed In parts of nearly every country in the world. When a person dies those who observe the custom go to the beehives aud tap gently on each, I hen stoop and whisper under the cap that Mary, or John, as the case may be. is dead. The superstitious beekeeper believes that if the bees hre compelled to fiud out the fact of a death for themselves, they will forsake their hives and never return.